“And yet your father would have me to take service with him--or wasn't
it so?”
“Yes.”
“While I think of it, Frøken, how did your father know I was working for
Captain Falkenberg? You were surprised yourself to find me there.”
She thought quickly, and glanced at Fruen and said:
“I wrote home and told them.”
Fruen cast down her eyes.
Now it seemed to me that the young lady was inventing. But she put in
excellent answers, and tied my tongue. It sounded all so natural; she
writes an ordinary letter to her people at home, and puts in something
like this: “And who do you think is here? The man who did those
water-pipes for us; he's felling timber now for Captain Falkenberg....”
But when we reached the vicarage, the new hand was engaged already, and
there at work--had been there three weeks past. He came out to take the
horses.
After that, I thought and thought again--why had they chosen me to drive
them down? Perhaps it was meant as a little treat for me, as against
Falkenberg's being asked into the parlour to sing. But surely--didn't
they understand, these people, that I was a man who had nearly finished
a new machine, and would soon have no need of any such trifles!
I went about sharp and sullen and ill-pleased with myself, had my meal
in the kitchen, where Oline gave me her blessing for the water-pipes,
and went out to tend my horses. I took my rug and went over to the barn
in the dark....